Two interesting thoughts on how social media can dampen social change. Adam Curtis on Under the Skin talks about lack of current prospects for social change, references how in (for example) the civil rights movement even the middle classes bedded in and gave over large parts of their lives for the cause. This is less likely now, as middle classes scared of what might actually have to endure to bring about real change, happy to endure relatively comfortable mediocrity. Easier to be disgusted from the sidelines over social media. Zeynep Tufecki (@zeynep) talks on Spark about the 10 years of organising that the civil rights movement put into civil action, versus the 3 months it might take a Facebook and Twitter initiated protest today. With a side effect being that the 3 month organising doesn’t have much foundation to sustain it after that initial protest.